The potential of small-scale biogas digesters to alleviate poverty and improve long term sustainability of ecosystem services in Sub-Saharan Africa...

The New and Emerging Technologies Research Competition (NET-RC) seeks to identify the key challenges and barriers that may be reducing the impact of technologies on the lives of poor people and help to identify some of the key technologies that could form the basis of further work. In this project we have considered energy production using small scale biogas digesters in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a technology that is already improving the lives of poor people in many parts of the developing world (Polprasert, 2007), but has to-date had only limited uptake in Africa. The challenge does not lie in the development of the small-scale biogas digesters; the processes of digestion are already well understood and different designs for low-cost digesters are operational. What is needed is the translational research to make it possible for these digesters to become available to people in SSA who have little or no disposable income and access to only limited material resources (Akinbami et al, 2001). Development is needed of effective, safe and affordable methods for using small scale biogas digesters to provide household energy and improve sanitation in the range of special conditions found in SSA, while obtaining the maximum economic and environmental benefits from the digested products, which are an important source of scarce nutrients. [authors abstract]